depth over distance
by QuietLittleVoices
Summary: the end of the world was not the time for this. ((Dean/Cas, End!verse, first time, 2nd Person Dean POV))


One.

There's a knock at the door and it takes you two, three to open it. But it's him, standing there looking at you. His eyes are bright and alert, so different from what you'd become used to that you almost don't recognize him.

After four, five, you stand to the side wordlessly and gesture for him to come in.

"I've been thinking," he starts, trailing off but still facing the same direction as when he'd walked in. Six. You shut the door. Seven.

You don't say anything, just watch and wait for him to continue on his own. Finally, he turns back to look at you. Fifteen. "I love you," he says, and it's not a confession. It's just a simple statement of facts, falling from his lips like they're not changing your world as he releases them into the air.

Your breath catches in your throat and you don't know what to say. He's not looking at you like he expects something, which isn't something you're used to. People _always_ expect something. But Cas was always an exception, wasn't he? He was always different.

There's so many different things you want to say in that moment – _are you sure? I love you, too. We're going to tear each other apart. _"For how long?" is what finally makes it way to your lips, slipping from them more sternly than you'd intended and you watch as the words hit him – watch as he flinches. He'd gotten so used to the drugs dulling him that he couldn't handle the real world.

"Forever." Twenty-four. "For as long as I can remember. Possibly for longer." Twenty-seven.

You take two strides across the room and kiss him, hard. It's not the soft, chaste kisses you'd once imagined sharing with him. It's hard and desperate and full of all the words unsaid, and all the ones that you'll never be able to say. Because the end of the world isn't a time for love confessions, isn't a time for falling in love. Your mind argues with your heart, saying you'd fallen years ago, but you shut it up with teeth and tongue, digging your fingers deeper into Cas' shoulder bones.

He yields to your touch, but only momentarily, and then he's giving as good as he's getting. You lose track of the seconds – forty, fifty, sixty, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you got here, with your hands in your hair, and you're pulling on his cotton shirt and tasting his collar bone. You press your lips against the junction between his throat and his shoulder and it draws a moan from him, so you move back up and swallow down the sound, trying to hold it deep inside yourself.

His fingertips are cold as they brush against your back, but you don't complain. You let him push them upwards, pulling your shirt with them, and then you finish the job, grabbing the back of your shirt and breaking from his mouth for long enough to divest yourself of it.

You think that it's nearing a thousand seconds since he knocked on the door as you fall into your bed in a mess of limbs. But there's no difference – one second blurs into the next, so long as you can keep your lips pressed to some part of him.

Your pants are barely off before it's over for the both of you, pent up frustration and longing boiling over and spilling out. You pull him to you afterwards, his head on your chest like you'd always imagined and your hands twined together.

"Why did it take us until now?" You ask, and you don't know it but it's been six hundred and sixty seconds.

He shakes his head, soft hair tickling the underside of your chin. "I don't know," he answers. "I don't know."

You close your eyes and settle down, listen to his hear beat against your rib cage creating an echoing rhythm with yours. "I love you," you offer to the air, as if it makes a difference. Love will not make the apocalypse end, love will not keep him from going back to the drugs in the morning, love will not keep the two of you perfect and together. The only thing that love is capable of is validating this moment and making it true, in creating an illusion that the sun will never again rise and you can spend the rest of eternity wrapped in comfort with him in your arms.

The only thing that love can do is lie.

And so you listen to his breathing, because there's truth in the way it slows and gradually matches yours. There's reality in the rise and fall of his back and the soft feel of his breath against your neck. There's a firmness in his skin under your hand, rubbing circles on his back so it doesn't cool too quickly and keep him from sleep.

You let the love swell in your chest, in your mind. Let yourself feel it, for once, because you know that in the morning this will be gone. You also know that you'll have him in your arms again, but it will never be the same as now. Already, you feel the love begin to taint itself on the darkness that is this entire fucked up situation. It shrivels in on itself and tries to persevere but you're too stubborn. You want it to blacken and burn, can't deal with it in its purest form.

Before you fall asleep, you press a final kiss to his tangled dark hair. It's the last kiss shared that will come from love, and you know it, but when you close your eyes, you pretend you're somewhere else. You pretend you're in a motel room somewhere along the interstate and the sun is shining through the shitty drapes and Sam's off the get breakfast and there's nothing to worry about. Only ghosts and monsters.

When you wake up, you're alone, but there's still a body lying next to you.


End file.
